Available year round, portable, sweet and creamy, bananas are a convenient way to add key nutrients to your diet. Bananas are high in vitamins, potassium, soluble fiber and protease inhibitors, which help remove stomach bacteria. Studies have found that regularly eating bananas helps maintain heart function, blood pressure levels, bone density, vision, digestion and kidney health. Buy bananas fresh and store them for future use.

Steps

Part 1

Storing to Ripen

1

Choose bananas based on their degree of ripeness. Depending on when you want to use them and how you wish to store them, you may want them to be more or less ripe. If you're shopping just for yourself, then you may want greener bananas so they aren't all ripe right away. If you're shopping for a family or a few people who will eat them quickly, then ripe bananas are the way to go. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing your bananas:

There is an alternative theory. The bananas may remain fresh longer inside the bag; take one out and leave the rest in the bag to test this. If the one that is removed ripens faster, then the bag may prove capable of retaining freshness. However, this may depend on the humidity and heat levels in the room where you're storing the bananas.

3

Store green bananas at room temperature. Refrigerating or freezing bananas before they ripen prevents the fruit from being able to properly ripen even after brought back to room temperature.

Put green bananas into a brown paper bag to speed up the ripening process. Add an apple or a tomato to the bag to ripen the bananas in less than 1 day.

Another way to speed up the ripening process is to place the bananas near other ripe fruit in a bowl, such as other ripe bananas.

4

Leave yellow-green ripening bananas exposed to air at room temperature for a few days. Be patient. Though it's true that the warmer the room, the sooner they will ripen, you should avoid placing the bananas in direct sunlight.

Hang the bananas on a banana tree. If you're a true banana lover, then a banana tree is a great investment. You can find free-standing banana trees that you can place on your countertop, as well as mountable banana hangers. Banana trees and hangers allow air to circulate and avoid "resting bruises" on the fruit.

Keep sliced bananas fresh. If you've sliced a banana, whether it's to put it in the fridge or to make a delicious fruit salad, you should cover the slices in a bit of lemon juice, pineapple juice, or vinegar, all of which will keep it fresher for longer.[1]

Part 2

Storing Ripe Bananas

1

Pull the bananas apart from the bunch. If your bananas are already pretty ripe, then you can keep them fresh and yellow for longer by pulling each banana away from the bunch. This will keep each banana fresher for longer.

Store the ripe bananas with unripe fruit. Take an unripe pear or avocado and place it near the bananas, and it will slow down the ripening process of the bananas, while ripening faster itself. It's a win-win situation!

Wrap the stems of the bananas in plastic wrap. This will prevent ethylene gas, which is produced naturally during the ripening process, from reaching other parts of the fruit and making it ripen too fast. You can even place some tape over the plastic wrap for some extra security. Every time you remove a banana from the bunch, rewrap it carefully. Alternately, you can just separate the bananas from the bunch and then wrap the step of each one individually. This takes a bit of love, but it's worth it![2][3]

4

Put the bananas in the produce drawer of your refrigerator after they are fully ripe. Refrigeration slows the ripening process considerably, but does not stop it. The peel will continue to turn brown, but the fruit will stay fresh and firm for 1 to 2 weeks. According to Dole Bananas, storing ripe bananas in the refrigerator will preserve their delicious taste for longer, even though their peels may turn black.[4]

5

Peel the bananas before freezing them. Put as many as will fit into a zipper storage bag or plastic container and store in the freezer. Note: Freezing bananas in their peel will make it impossible to peel them if frozen. And once they thaw, they turn into a goopy mess. Add frozen, peeled bananas to smoothies.

6

Store bananas in the freezer for several months. When thawed, you can use the bananas to bake and cook, as well as in fruit sauces and smoothies. You can also drizzle them with just a bit of lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.[5]

Peel bananas and cut them into chunks or mash them before freezing.

Portion the banana into the amounts you need to make a recipe.

Put portioned bananas into zipper freezer bags or plastic containers and store them in the freezer.

7

Make banana bread with overripe bananas. Banana bread is a delicious treat that is designed to be made with overripe bananas. If it's too late for you to store them and eat them enjoyably, then it may be time to make this delicious treat. After all, you don't really want to waste what was once a tasty bunch of bananas, do you? All you need is a few simple ingredients, which include bananas, nuts, flour, eggs, butter, and cinnamon.

I defrosted bananas and peeled them ready to bake with them. I left them in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. Are they still safe to bake with?

wikiHow Contributor

In this case, the answer is that a few weeks is probably a little too long. Keeping refrigerated and using within a few days is recommended, but after that time, the mashed flesh may deteriorate or even have bacterial growth. Look at the color and texture and smell the mash, to determine how the thawed bananas seem to you. Anything that appears bad is a reason to discard the bananas.

I took a baking class this week and the teacher said always separate bananas do not keep them in a bunch or together for slowing down ripening. I hang mine on a banana hanging tree that holds them together. Should I put them in a bowl separated instead?

wikiHow Contributor

Once the bananas have ripened, separating them from the bunch is a good idea to prevent them from ripening any further in a speedy manner. However, this is space consuming and isn't really something most people have the time and space for doing. If you and your family/household members eat bananas quickly and regularly, it shouldn't really matter that the ripe bananas remain in a bunch, as long as they're eaten soon after ripening. Any bananas that ripen too quickly can be used in muffins, cakes, and other baked goods.

It's not recommended but equally, it's not clear cut! The reason for not recommending storage of bananas in the fridge is that the skin will blacken (hence, they look awful) and they stop ripening because the ripening enzymes break down below 4ºC. That said, if the bananas are already as ripe as you'd like them to be and you don't mind the skin being blackened, then you can store them in the refrigerator. Some people actually prefer unripe banana flesh, so are not bothered that it won't ripen any further. The optimal storage temperature for bananas is around 10ºC.

Do bananas on banana trees ripen faster than if left on the counter in a bunch?

wikiHow Contributor

Bananas left to ripen on trees split and become floury and unpalatable. This is one fruit that must be removed prior to ripening and allowed to ripen off the tree, so as to avoid the undesirable ripening qualities on the tree. Bananas are much better ripening in a bunch on your counter.

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"I doubted this until my husband put the ripe bananas into the refrigerator. Then, I set up my mind to explore the possibilities and found out that this article did make sense. Thank you."..." more- Nora Machado

"Just about every question you ever had about storing bananas is answered here. Even includes a thorough discussion of various ways it might be appropriate to refrigerate bananas!"..." more- Maggie C.

"It was good to know that the black skin on the bananas in the fridge is just that, black skin, and not harmful to the actual fruit, as my family prefers cold bananas."..." more- Joan Ward

"I'm doing a science project, and it's keeping a banana in the fridge. I needed research for it. It's going good so far. "..." more- Kaylee Anderson

Answered all my questions on storing and using bananas.
- Jan Maruszewski